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AU BONHEUR DES DAMES
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German-born romantic actress Dita Parlo (Grand Illusion) stars in this late silent film from one of the masters of French poetic realism, Julien Duvivier. She plays Denise, an orphan girl who comes to Paris to find work in her uncle's small shop, but instead takes a job in the big, glamorous department store across the street. When her employer begins demolishing buildings in the neighborhood, her uncle's store is the last one in the crosshairs. "I see Walter Ruttman's Symphony of a City in its portrait of urban destruction and renewal, presented with a sense of loss as well as a sense of the unstoppable force of progress by Duvivier" (Sean Axmaker, GreenCine Daily). Based on a novel by Emile Zola. Original music by Gabriel Thibaudeau, interpreted by l'Octuor de France. Silent with English, French, and German intertitles.

Julien Duvivier---France---1930---89 mins.
CHESS PLAYER
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Set in Russian-occupied Poland in 1776, The Chess Player tells the story   of a Polish nobleman that heads a secret liberation movement. When he is         injured in battle, an inventor constructs a chess-playing automaton for the      nobleman to hide in. When the automaton begins beating Russian challengers,    Catherine the Great summons the machine to Russia for a command match and the  fate of Polish liberation is in the chess player's hands. Loosely based on     true events, this lush, epic silent drama was shot on location in Poland,        France and Switzerland. Grand sets and impressive action sequences highlight   the film. "One of the most fascinating and stylish productions of French       silent cinema. Perfect" (The Times, London).                             Raymond Bernard---France---1927---133 mins.
CLASSIC EROTICA COLLECTION
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A collection of films created for projection rooms in Parisian nightclubs like   the Chabanais, the Panieri Fleuri, the Sphinx, and the Temple De Venus. In the   1920s these daring and racy films were among the first of their kind. France,    70 mins.
ELDORADO ( 1921 )
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Too often overlooked today, Marcel L'Herbier's Eldorado broke new ground   with its combination of avant garde and traditional narrative techniques and     it was a great influence on Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad among    many other films. The tale of a dancer rejected by her lover and forced to     endure other indignities in order to support her child is told in              expressionistic style, with camera angles and architectural design defining    the emotional states of the characters even more than plot or performance.       Silent with French and German intertitles.                                     Marcel L'Herbier---France---1921---97 mins.
ETIENNE-JULES MAREY: FILMS CHRONOPHOTOGRAPHIQUES (1890-1904)
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French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey invented the chronophotographic gun in 1882 to take series photographs of animal locomotion. Although these scientific studies of beings in motion barely even count as primitive cinema, these series photographs of live action where the first ever recorded in a single camera. Some 400 of these very short, iconic silent films have been restored by the Cinematheque Francaise and made available in this collection that is absolutely essential for film educators, libraries, or personal arsenals. IMPORT. PAL Region 2.

Etienne-Jules Marey---France---1890-1904---60 mins.
GALLERY OF MONSTERS/ GALERIE
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Married carnival performers are subjected to the abuses of their employer in     this silent film gem that has not received as much attention as it deserves.     When the boss' unwanted advances on the wife are refused, he taunts a lion       until it nearly kills her. But the other performers assist in a unique plot    for revenge. Jaque Catelain directs and stars in this film made for            influential French director Marcel L'Herbier's production company. Some        sources also list L'Herbier as co-director, as he is credited here. The film     boasts some rapid-fire editing techniques that were decades ahead of its time. Silent with sound effects and music track. New English title inserts.          Jaque Catelain/Marcel L'Herbier---France---1924---53 mins.
GAUMONT TREASURES VOL. 2: 1908-1916 (EMILE COHL/JEAN DURAND/JACQUES FEYDER)
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A three-disc collection of more than 75 films by Emile Cohl, Jean Durand, Jacques Feyder, and other early masters of French cinema who flourished at France's influential Gaumont Film Company. The first celebrates the work of Emile Cohl, an animator whose interest in pushing the technological boundaries of animation helped pave the way for Walt Disney and others. His innovations with frame-by-frame and stop-frame animation, double-exposure, and combinations of live-action and animation are on display in Fantasmagoria (1908), The Living Fan (1908), The Puppet's Nightmare (1908), Comic Mutations (1909), The Twelve Labors of Hercules (1910), Petit Faust (1910), Bebe's Masterpiece (1910), and more. Disc two focuses on the comedies and adventure films of Jean Durand, a protege of Louis Feullade who went on to influence the likes of Mack Sennett and Rene Clair in his own right. At Gaumont, Durand directed 168 sophisticated and popular comedies and adventures, including Calino Wants to Be a Cowboy (1911), Onesime Goes to Hell (1912), Onesime, Clockmaker (1912), Onesime Loves Animals (1913), Zigoto Drives a Locomotive (1912), The Railway of Death (1912), Burning Heart: An Indian Tale (1912), Under the Claw (1912), and more. Lastly, disc three highlights the work of Jacques Feyder (1929's The Kiss; Knight Without Armor). The Belgian-born director began his career acting for Feuillade and Melies before making a variety of well-crafted shorts at Gaumont that helped push the medium forward. This includes Heads...and Women Who Use Them (1916) and others, accompanied by The Barges (Lacroix, 1911), La Marseillaise (Arnaud, 1912), Child's Play (Fescourt, 1913), and Feet and Hands (Ravel, 1915). Silent with French intertitles and English subtitles.

Emile Cohl/Jean Durand/Jacques Feyder---France---1908-1916---598 mins.
GAUMONT TREASURES: 1897-1913 (ALICE GUY/LOUIS FEUILLADE/LEONCE PERRET)
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A three-disc collection of more than 75 early films by Alice Guy, Louis Feuillade, and Leonce Perret, the three main supervising directors at France's influential Gaumont Productions. The first disc is dedicated to cinema's first female director, Alice Guy (or Guy-Blache), and includes over 60 of the films she produced in France, from early trick films to primitive comedies to social issue films to a primitive religious epic, The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906, 33 mins.). The second disc features 13 of the 800 some films directed by Feuillade, Guy's successor as artistic director at Gaumont and the maker of famous serials like Les Vampires and Fantomas. The last disc features two technically sophisticated films, The Mystery of the Rocks of Kador (1912, 43 mins.) and The Child of Paris (1913, 124 mins.), directed by Feuillade's overlooked protege at Gaumont, Leonce Perret. Silent with music score.

Alice Guy/Louis Feuillade/Leonce Perret---France---1897-1913---609 mins.
GOOD OLD NAUGHTY DAYS
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Make it a blue night with this compilation of silent one-reel hardcore pornographic films made in France between 1905 and 1930. Selected by Michel Reilhac from a collection of 300 discovered in the attic of a "very respectable family," these dozen films feature surprisingly high production standards compared to films being made elsewhere at the time and an inventive and often humorous array of diverse couplings. Very explicit.  Michel Reilhac---France---1905-1930---71 mins.
J'ACCUSE (1919 SILENT)
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Gance's first, silent version of his anti-war story tells the epic tale of a     young peasant woman, her older husband, and the poet who loves her. When the     two men are called to the front, the woman is raped by a German soldier. Her     husband returns to find her pregnant and hastily accuses the poet. However,    when the two men discover the truth, they return to the trenches to avenge     her. Silent with original French titles, optional English subtitles, and new   symphonic score by Robert Israel.                                                Abel Gance---France---1919---166 mins.
L'INHUMAINE/ NEW ENCHANTMENT
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In this early, silent science-fiction film, Einar Norsen (Jaque Catelain) has    devised an elaborate system for resurrecting the dead, which he uses to win      the object of his unrequited love, Claire Lescaut (Georgette Leblanc), an        infamous singer. Critics have regarded this film as an attempt to celebrate    film as art and to reconcile the popular with the elitist. Silent with French  Marcel L'Herbier---France---1924---128 mins.
LA REVUE DES REVUES
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She was born in St. Louis and raised in Harlem, but Josephine Baker (Zou      Zou) became a Montmartre sensation in Paris during the days of Le Jazz Hot.   Thought to be lost for decades, this restored silent musical stars Baker in a    variety of sexy, carnal music hall numbers. These already lavish productions   were color-tinted using a complex stencil process, and the overall effect is   grand. "Part city symphony, part backstage Cinderella story, and part canned   theater" (J. Hoberman, Village Voice). Also known as Parisian           Pleasures. Silent with free jazz score                                      Joe Francis---France---1927---103 mins.
LA ROUE/THE WHEEL
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In its time, this film had such an impact on French filmmakers that Jean         Cocteau supposedly began referring to "a cinema before and after La           Roue." It is the tragic tale of Sisif (Severin Mars), an engine driver, who   saves a girl from a train crash and adopts her, then falls in love with her as she grows into a beautiful young woman (Ivy Close). He marries her off to a    rich railway administrator in an effort to rid himself of temptation, but his  torment does not cease. "No film since De Mille's The Cheat, not even      L'Herbier's El Dorado, had so stunned the French filmmakers, critics and cinephiles" (Richard Abel, French Cinema). Silent with English titles    and new music score by Robert Israel.                                          Abel Gance---France---1923---270 mins.
LA TERRE
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In this silent film adaptation of Emile Zola's story of greed and deception      among small landowners, Armand Bour stars as Old Fouan, a farmer who is slowly   robbed of his land, his farmhouse and his money, by his own sons. Features       excellent performances from Comedie Francaise actors and cinematography        described by Paul de la Borie as meticulously painterly, almost Millet-like,   Andre Antoine---France---1921---97 mins.
LANDMARKS EARLY FILM 1
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Beginning with examples of Eadweard James Muybridge's series photography (1877-1885) and continuing on through 1913, this collection includes some of the earliest films and film experiments still in existence. Included are eight Edison Kinetoscope films (1894-1896), fifteen Lumiere films (1895-1897), and six historic actualities (1897-1910), including footage of President McKinley and the aftermath of a San Francisco earthquake. From there, the collection moves to some of the first truly accomplished narrative films made: George Melies' A Trip to the Moon (1902); Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train  Robbery; D.W. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust (1912); Winsor     McCay and His Moving Comics (J. Stuart Blackton/Winsor McCay, 1911); Bangville Police (Harry Lehrman, 1913); The Whole Dam Family and the  Dam Dog (1905); The Golden Beetle (1907); The Policemen's Little Run (1907);  Troubles of a Grasswidower (1908); and Nero, or The
LAUGH WITH MAX LINDER
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Called "my teacher" by Charles Chaplin, French comedian Max Linder was known for his expert timing and physical grace. This collection features the classic slapstick farce, Seven Years Bad Luck (1920, 85 mins.), written, directed and produced by Linder, which follows the funnyman's misadventures after breaking a full-length mirror. Four shorts, Troubles of a Grasswidower (1908), Love's Surprises, Max Takes a Picture (1913) and Max Sets the Style, are included, as well as clips from Be My Wife (1921), Max's second American feature, and candid footage of Linder clowning around with director Maurice Tourneur.                                Max Linder---France---1913-1921---117 mins.
MARVELOUS LIFE JOAN OF ARC
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This popular historical reconstruction was de Gastyne's most ambitious, and      took him two years to shoot. The life of Joan of Arc is told from her peasant    youth at Domremy to her death at the stake in Rouen. Stars Simone Genevois as    Jeanne, Philippe Heriat as Gilles de Rais, and Jean Toulot as La Tremouille.   Silent with French titles.                                                     Marc de Gastyne---France---1929---124 mins.
MELIES III SEARCH MUNCHAUSEN
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A terrific compilation of trick film fantasies from Melies including Baron    Munchhausen's Dream, The Witch's Revenge, The Infernal Caldron, The Damnation    of the Monster, and The Terrible Turkish Executioner. 45 mins.
MICHAEL STROGOFF
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An epic French silent by Russian emigre director Viktor Tourjansky, Michael   Strogoff relates the story of the title character's quest to stave off a      Tartar invasion. The part of Strogoff is played by Russian actor Ivan            Mousjoukine, a silent-era star whose directorial work is fabled to have        inspired Jean Renoir to pick up a camera. Eisenstein-style montage, dramatic   tinting, and Mousjoukine's heroic performance make this an unsung masterpiece  Viktor Tourjansky---France---1926---168 mins.
MORE MELIES
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A second companion volume to Marvelous Melies, this further compilation    of pioneering primitives from Georges Melies includes The Inn Where No Man    Rests, Spiritualist Photographer, The Magic Lantern, Clockmaker's Dream, The     Cook in Trouble, The Bob Kick (a.k.a. Mischievous Kid), The Oracle of Delphi,  Drawing Lesson, Jupiter's Thunderbolt and The Mermaid. B&W, 60 mins.